People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Here are eight random things about me:

1. I avoid buying clothes that require dry cleaning. This is not the result of personal environmentalism. Rather, I have discovered over the years that I’m too disorganized to get dirty clothes to the dry cleaners and pick them up.

2. Although I’ve dyed my hair a rainbow of colors over the years, I have always been happy to have been born a redhead. When I was a child, Pippi Longstocking was my hero.

3. The talent I most wish I had: singing. Both my parents sing well, my sister Katy has a beautiful voice, and everyone else in my family sounds at least fine. I’m a croaking toad.

4. If I were ever to go back to school, I would study law.

5. My family’s nickname for me as a kid was "The Encyclopedia." I was also infamous for correcting anyone’s grammar. In retrospect, I can’t understand why anyone was my friend.

6. In 1997, a friend of mine read my palm and told me that my lifeline indicates I’ll live only to age 55. Perhaps this should upset me. Instead, I find it kind of a relief, because I’m clearly not saving enough for retirement.

7. Try as I may, I can’t get myself to enjoy the music of Sonic Youth.

8. My current favorite Bob Dylan song is "Isis." This link points to lyrics that don’t match what’s on the album "Desire." I much prefer the recorded version:

She said, "Where ya been?" I said, "No place special."
She said, "You look different." I said, "Well, I guess."
She said, "You been gone." I said, "That’s only natural."
She said, "You gonna stay?" I said, "If you want me to, yes."

I shall hereby tag these people, whom I believe haven’t been tagged with this memey-thing before and who I think will not hate me too much for passing it to them:

According to the people making the film adaptation of Philip Pullman’s novel, I am a study in contradictions. How can I be both proud and modest? Or shy and assertive? Please clean up this mess with your perceptions of me by clicking the above movie and answering a couple of questions.

I hope I don’t end up with a gibbon.

UPDATE: Ooh, my daemon has changed! The name and description are the same, but where I had a big tiger before, now I have an ocelot or some other middle-sized cat.

UPDATE 2: And now it’s a mouse. Are people really convinced that I’m shy? Or in the PUllman novel are the bossy daemons the mice and other small critters?

Received this missive on the mailing list of Mike Doughty today, announcing what would surely be my dream band:

Mike Doughty is involved in a new project called PASS THE MIKE with Mike Campbell (The Heartbreakers) on guitar; Mike Mills (R.E.M.) on bass, guitar and keys; Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater) on drums; and Mike Watt (Minutemen, fIREHOSE) on bass and backing vocals.

The band is currently talking with labels about a possible fall 2007 release.

String arranger Mike Narr described it from the studio last week: “If you took the kind of jazz they play on the Weather Channel out to the alley and beat the hell out of it with a whiskey bottle, and it got really mad and vengeful and vowed to tease puppies, Pass The Mike sounds like the ensuing restraining order. Except with better hooks.”

The album also includes guest appearances by Mike D (Beastie Boys) and Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Peeping Tom). The group is recording now with producer Mike Chapman, who helmed breakthrough albums by Blondie and The Knack.

I’m very late to this meme party, but loving All Things iPod as I do, I can’t resist:

The iPod Ching: The premise is that the shuffle function on your iPod provides answers to preselected questions, and you then interpret those answers. This is probably best done with the help of a drink or at the end of a three-day fast … I haven’t eaten anything yet today though so I am feeling somewhat light-headed. So here goes!

How does the world see you?
"Spirit in the Night," Bruce Springstein
I seem like a wild and crazy girl I guess. The truth is much less exciting, but I’m happy to keep everyone entertained.

Will I have a happy life?
"Time for Me to Fly," REO Speedwagon
Either I should pursue a pilot’s license or the iPod Ching is trying to get out of answering this question.

What do my friends really think of me?
"One Last ‘Whoo-hoo!’ for the Pullman," Sufjan Stevens
I have never managed to listen to this Sufjan Stevens album in a single sitting. Yesterday I tried starting halfway through and still quit a few songs from the end. It’s interesting, but also weird. Anyway, so this particular song lasts only 6 seconds. I assume this means that when my friends think of me, they don’t think for very long.

What should I do with my life?
"Greenbacks," Ray Charles
Forget the pilot’s license and go for the Benjamins. Check.

Will I ever have children?
"Whistling in the Dark," They Might Be Giants
Hmm.

What is some good advice for me?
"Complicated Shadow," Elvis Costello & The Attractions
I think "Whistling in the Dark" is better advice. What can this mean? The song is on the Sopranos Soundtrack — I guess it means I should avoid New Jersey and/or "connected" people. That is good advice either way.

How will I be remembered?
"Wicked Game," Chris Isaak
I will be remembered as a monochrome video of a model rolling around on a beach with Chris Isaak. That’s fine by me.

What is my signature dancing song?
"Oh My Golly!" The Pixies
This is absolutely true. My signature dancing style is bouncing frenetically, nearly crashing into the people around me, as if I graduated from the Tourette’s School of Dance. And that’s exactly how one should dance to this song.

What do I think my current theme song is?
"(Night Time Is) The Right Time," Ray Charles
This is also true. I am a night owl.

What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
"Hate To Say I Told You So," The Hives
And more truth. Gosh, this thing is great!

What song will play at my funeral?
"Love in Vain," Rolling Stones
What a failed romantic figure I am.

What type of men do you like?
"Thunderwing," T.Rex
I am actually more drawn to Audi TTs these days, but maybe the song simply points out my general automotive leaning.

What is my day going to be like?
"Looking at the World From the Bottom of a Well," Mike Doughty
I am submerged beneath layers of work, plus my office is in a basement. So this is delightfully accurate.

I couldn’t sleep last night, so I added a few more books — about a hundred. I think I’m about a quarter of the way done, but I haven’t taken a hard look at the shelves in my office. Also, there are the cookbooks in the hall.

But at this point it’s amusing to look at the Author Cloud that’s forming:

I’m mildly concerned that J.K. Rowling is so prominent. Should I go buy a second copy of A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again to even out the balance? At the least, I may pull Men and Cartoons out of my “ready to sell on Amazon” pile and put it back on the keeper shelf.

I am incredibly busy, as evidenced by my lack of recent posting here and hereand here. And so when Syntax of Things described the time-consuming diversion that’s slowing his packing for an impending move, I seized on it like a drowning swimmer.

And so now I’ve started cataloguing my collection of booksin LibraryThing. Check out the new random library snapshot to my sidebar to the right. I’ve listed only 15 books in my library so far, so there’s not a lot of randomness going on. I’m going to limit myself to listing only 15 new books per day — my library isn’t massive, but the project will still extend over a few weeks. It will be interesting to discover which authors are most represented and how many of the “most owned” books I have.

Actually, Tea Leaves had previous blogged about a similar tool for cataloguing one’s library, with the added benefit of connecting with others to lend or give away extra books. But LibraryThing makes it easy to create an author cloud to show which authors dominate and which are just sneaking in, and that’s exactly the kind of geeky, pseudo-statistical, competitive widget that I adore.

I’ll wait until I have more books listed before publishing an author cloud here. In fact, It’s probably going to be the site element that forces me at last to complete the Big Redesign that I started and abandoned months ago.

All this to keep from working on my taxes. Procrastination is a wondrous thing.

An iTunes signature is a smear of bits of tracks from one’s iTunes library. You make it with this application.

[The iTunes Signature Maker] selects a small number of your “favorite” tracks based on some simple selection criteria, such as the number of times you have played them or the rating you have assigned them. Then it analyzes the audio content of these files, combining a small bit of each of them to create the signature.

Notably, the Signature Maker skips tracks purchased from the iTunes store, so it can’t create a true sample of my library. But for what it can do, it’s neat.

I’m not super enthused with the way this signature of mine starts. (Sheryl Crow? So embarrassing.) But I like the end very much. There are 50 songs represented in all. How many can you identify?

I like New Year’s resolutions. I like the feeling of resolving to be better in some way. “From now on, I will [insert resolution here] and thus be a better person.” Resolving to do something feels like a strong and positive step toward good; and it’s much easier than actually being good.

In fact, I like resolutions so much I make them all year round: I don’t want to wait until January 1 to feel I’m making progress.

But still, when each new year arrives I make a few extra resolutions. When everyone’s making new commitments there’s resolve in the air.

But not everyone values New Year’s resolutions. Inner Bitch recently pointed out a random resolution generator. It combines the progressive feeling of resolutions with the optimistic randomness of fortune cookie messages. Here’s what it suggested for me:

As it happens, some years back I did have a habit of slapping people on the head. They were not stupid people though — they were friends who had somehow made me annoyed. I never meant to hurt anyone; my slaps were like those of the stereotypical mom knocking her son upside the head for making a snide remark at the dinner table. Or rather, I thought they were. Apparently I hit people hard and there were complaints.

I managed to switch to punching shoulders instead, thinking it was a buddy-buddy move that would be perceived better. But then one day I hit my roommate Sharon hard enough to bruise. This was shortly before a swanky party; the bruise blossomed into a purple and green splotch, which Sharon’s sleeveless dress seemed almost to display. I resolved then to stop hitting friends altogether.

I’m recovering slowly from the writerly exertions of November. Extra slowly because with December have come a slew of social events — more than usual even — and the attendent buying of gifts and figuring out of outfits and general fussing with hair. And there’s still the regular work and so forth.

You are a person of great enthusiasm – easily excited by many things. Unsatisfied by the ordinary, you are reaching for an epic, extraordinary life. You want the best. The best life. The best love. The best reputation.

You posses a sharp and keen intellect. Your mind is your primary weapon. Strong willed, nothing can keep you down. Your energy can break down any wall.
You’re an instantly passionate person – and this passion gives you an intoxicating power over others.

At your worst, you are a narcissist. Full of yourself and even proud of your faults. Stubborn and opinionated, you know what you think is right. End of discussion. A bit of a misanthrope, you often see others as weak, ignorant, and inferior.

Note the picture. I have red hair even! Although it’s not quite as bright as that, nor as long. And maybe I should get a big butterfly to perch on my arm while I dance with abandon. This is going to be a very busy month indeed.